


Nyctophobia

by PepperPrints



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:16:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperPrints/pseuds/PepperPrints
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post series. Most children his age were afraid of the dark, but Selim wasn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nyctophobia

**Author's Note:**

> For 31_days. Prompt: where I live, everyone is sleeping.

 Most children his age were afraid of the dark.

 

Selim wasn't, and this was something he was especially proud of. However, he still slept with a light on. It wasn't meant to scare away ghosts or monsters, but rather to invite one – though Selim didn't think of it that way.

 

It started with shadow puppets: little games he played in the dim light that was cast against the bedroom wall when he was too restless to sleep. He made a bird fly, or chatted with a talking dog, and it was all very simple things.

 

Then the shadows played back.

 

“What are you drawing, Selim?” his mother asked, bending over him as he scribbled on the paper.

 

“A friend,” he replied. “He's a shadow.”

 

His mother gave him an odd look. “Then why don't you finish coloring him in?” she asked tentatively, but Selim shook his head.

 

“No, he's supposed to be in white,” he told her, digging through his colored pencils. “He's a white shadow.”

 

There was a pause, and he saw the tension in her face before she smiled. She looked worried about something, and Selim couldn't tell what – but his suspicion vanished the moment she gently ran her hand through his hair.

 

“A white shadow,” she said, shaking her head at the contradiction. “All right, darling.”

 

The shadows formed a human shape, one that moved and talked and called Selim by name. Selim believed that all those nights of playing with the shadows finally built up and created this playmate for him. He was smiling and clever, telling Selim grand stories about alchemy and a man with scars. He described images of far away places and stories greater than any fairytale. Showing none of the nervousness and fear that others did around him, Selim had trust in this one true companion – who he could only see after dark.

 

Other children didn't like him very much at all. Even his mother couldn't be trusted as much as his shadow man. Sometimes Selim would say something, and she would become strange for reasons Selim didn't understand – not his shadow, though. His shadow never doubted or judged.

 

Selim felt freer here.

 

Selim turned the light on, and watched the wide shadows that were cast across his bed. Within them emerged a slender figure, perched on the edge of his mattress with a wide smile and neatly folded legs.

 

“Shouldn't you be sleeping?”

 

“No,” answered Selim immediately, all exhaustion lost to excitement. “I'm not tired.”

 

The white shadow chuckled a little, toying with the brim of his hat. “Funny,” he replied, “neither am I.”

 

Selim felt giddy, shuffling closer on his knees over the neatly folded sheets. His mother had done a good job of tucking him in, and now he was spoiling it. “Do you ever need to sleep?” asked Selim, perhaps a little envious, since every boy his age wished bedtime did not exist for them.

 

The white shadow looked thoughtful for a moment, and then he shook his head a little, side to side. “You could say I'm asleep whenever I'm not here,” he reasoned simply.

 

Selim's eyes widened a little bit. The idea worried and frightened him. That much sleep sounded like an illness, and he wanted to keep his friend alive and with him.

 

To be honest, the shadow was the only friend he had.

 

“Are there others like you?” asked Selim. “To keep you company?”

 

The shadow smirked at him, as if enjoying a joke that Selim wasn't aware of making. “No, I'm here alone with you,” he said, and he looked very startled by what Selim did next.

 

Shadow or not, the man was very solid when Selim grabbed his sleeve, sitting right up flush to him now. “Tell a story?” he asked nervously, which earned a sighing breath.

 

“All right, what will it be tonight?” The white shadow drew his hat from his head, dusting off its edges idly. “The scarred man?”

 

It didn't escape Selim's notice that the shadow liked those stories best. He told a lot, but he really seemed to love it when he talked about this man above all. The stories went longer, and the shadow's grins were wider. For that reason, Selim asked for this story more than any other: the scarred man and his red lotus rival. The stories were best when the shadow enjoyed them too.

 

“Yeah,” said Selim, shifting eagerly where he sat. “You said he had a fight in the North, and I wanna know what happens next.”

 

The shadow sighed again, and he glanced down at Selim seriously. “Well, I can't tell you.”

 

Selim's eyes widened and blinked several times. “W-what do you mean?” he asked, his voice trembling without him realizing.

 

The shadow cocked his head, grinning down at him. “Because he doesn't see the red lotus another time,” responded the shadow simply. “Their paths never cross again.”

 

Selim paused, feeling confusion and uncertainty. That wasn't how stories were supposed to go! The hero and the villain didn't just separate and never meet again. The hero had to strike the villain down. Every story that Selim had ever heard told him so; it didn't make any sense otherwise.

 

“What happens then?” asked Selim nervously, somehow dreading the answer.

 

The white shadow smirked and Selim found himself tensing. “The scarred man? I don't know. But the red lotus? Is swallowed up,” he said, and his expression darkened. “By a little boy bathed in shadows.”

 

What?

 

The darkness in his room suddenly seemed alive, and Selim inched back on his bed, his heartbeat fluttering. What did he mean 'swallowed up'? What was happening...?

 

“He doesn't see the scarred man again,” the white shadow explained, “and he doesn't die. Instead, he's somewhere in between, living among sleeping and screaming souls...”

 

The tips of shadows touched his ankles, and Selim scrambled back with a startled cry. “Ah! Stop!” he shouted, but his once-friend did not listen. The shadows grew darker, thicker, and the entire room was alive and reaching for him.

 

“And the little boy,” he continued, “forgets it all – but not the red lotus... oh no, he remembers...”

 

“Stop it!” cried Selim, kicking out against the darkness that had no form or shape to fight with. He panicked, jumped, and his hand fumbled wildly for the switch of his light. “Stop!” The name burst out of him like a scream and he could not tell its origin. “Stop – _Kimblee!_ ”

 

His hand found its goal and the light was off, bathing the room in pure, solid darkness. No shadow was cast, no hands reached for him, and no voice called his name. Selim sat in the center of his bed, his heart pounding against his chest and his hands trembling.

 

Most children his age were afraid of the dark.


End file.
